Absentia
is about loss. It's the story of two sisters trying to navigate a painful
transition, as one of them is about to declare her long-missing husband
'dead in absentia'. It turns out, though, that their neighborhood has a
long history of strange disappearances, and her husband might be suffering
a fate far worse than death.

Your
film's basic concept has a certain urban legends ring to it. Is there any
truth to this assumption?

Sure. I love
mythology, and people have this idea that mythology is supposed to be
ancient. We're creating new myths all the time, and those myths can exist
solely in a city, or a neighborhood, or even a family. One of the
reviewers called the film a "dark urban fairy tale" and I loved
that description. There's definitely a "local legends" vibe
going on.

Writing
the movie was kind of a backwards experience. I live across the street
from that tunnel, and I knew for years I wanted to use it for a horror
movie. Finding the story that fit the tunnel was the real motivating
factor. After that, I knew going into the script what resources were
available to me ... I knew the cast and wrote parts specifically for them,
I knew I had no budget so didn't venture too far out of the stretch of
road between the apartment and the tunnel. I wrote to my resources and
limitations.

Beyond
the practical side, though, the film is primarily a reaction to a
traumatic event within my family where everyone had to deal with a sudden
and unexpected loss. It took me months after the film was finished to
realize that, but a lot of imagery and certainly the themes of
rationalizing an incomprehensible loss stemmed from that. I'm kind of
amazed it took me so long to realize it.

How would you describe your
directorial approach?

In
general? I'd say minimalistic. My early work is very talky and now it's
all about how to get an idea across as simply as possible. I love silence,
negative space and the idea that less is more. I also believe,
wholeheartedly, that what you can't see is always scarier than what you
can.

Specifically
to this project, though, I'd describe my approach as desperate and rushed.
We had so little time, we barely had time enough for two takes on most of
the setups for Absentia. There are certain sequences that I feel
represent a style I'd describe as my own, like the shower curtain
sequences and a scene toward the end of a character peering into complete
darkness, but those were the exceptions to the rule. Most of the time I
was just trying to hang on and keep up; it was like riding a mechanical
bull.

That
meant that snap decisions became a necessity, so once I'd vocally made a
decision about any aspect of the film there wasn't any time to double back
and say "hmmm, maybe that's not the right way to go." That meant
that, once a choice was made, I had a take or two to make that choice
work, no matter what. I lucked out; it worked a lot of the time.

The actual menace of Absentia
is actually never shown throughout your film. Why is that?

There
are two reasons for that, really. One is, of course, we didn't have a
budget that would have allowed us to depict a detailed monster. It just
was never going to happen. We knew that going in, though, and that made
for some really fun challenges.

The
other, though, is that I really do believe it's always scarier NOT to see
it. Even if we'd had a substantially bigger budget, I doubt you'd see much
more than you see now. Part of what makes the movie work is the ambiguity
of it all, and the sense that there are valid alternative explanations for
everything happening. We'd lose that tension if we clearly showed a
monster, and whatever we could show would be less effective than what
people could make up in their own minds.

It
was actually a real blast to try to paint a picture in the audience's
imagination without explicitly showing the thing in its entirety, and I've
found that most people imagine basically the same thing, so that's a real
victory. We were very careful to show certain things in closeup, like the
silver fish and the spiders, to plant suggestions of certain images in the
audience's minds. Then, once we showed enough of the creature to imply its
size, the hope was that they'd use the ingredients we'd planted earlier in
the film to build their own imaginary creature, and it seems like that
worked very well. I'm actually quite proud of that.

With
Absentia being a horror film - is this a genre dear to you? And
which kinds of horror do you prefer, and some of your genre favourites?

It
is absolutely a genre dear to me. I was always really scared of horror
movies as a kid, and actually remember the feeling that making it through
certain films as I got older was kind of a victory. Now I can't get
enough. I'm a rabid Stephen King fan; I own every book he's ever written
in hardcover. I pour through so many horror movies that when something
comes along that really gets under my skin, that makes me think and makes
me scared and really makes an impact, I kind of go nuts about it.

I
prefer psychological horror, though I still do enjoy the brainless gore
sometimes. Some of my favorites are Session 9,
Lake Mungo,
and a lot of foreign films like A Tale of Two Sisters,
Ju-on, Pulse,
Cure, Voice ... I don't tend to find much use
for torture porn or survival horror, in fact I kind of loathe a lot of the
popular ones that just try to figure out gruesome ways to brutalize
people. I think they're cowardly in a way, and shooting for the lowest
common denominator. But every now and then I find a movie that really
engages me intellectually, or philosophically, while managing to truly
frighten me, even days later. Those are treasures.

A
few words about your cast and crew?

I
owe them everything. This was the first movie experience for most of them,
from the producers to the actors to the director of photography ... we had
a skeleton crew of eight people, many of whom had to wear a half dozen
hats while we were in production, and the cast was really thrown into the
fire. It was terrifying and difficult for everyone and they really pulled
it out. We shot sunset to sunrise and were all crammed into my apartment,
so it really does feel like we spent 15 days in a foxhole together. The
actors, particularly the leading ladies, made the film a success.

Your film is only
just about to be released but has played quite a few festivals if my
information is right. What can you tell us about audience reception so
far?

It's
been terrific. You always get scared when you're finishing a film, because
you can't see it anymore. Neither can anyone who worked on it; all
objectivity is just gone. I remember we all were very nervous that the
movie just wasn't scary, that was our biggest fear. But seeing it with
audiences has been just awesome, watching people cover their eyes and
scream out loud and realizing that the entire room is holding their breath
at the same time ... we don't watch the movie when we're at a festival, we
watch the audience. It's an absolute joy for us, and apparently something
of a traumatic experience for them.

Let's leave the present behind for the time being
and head forward into your past: What got you into filmmaking in the first
place, and did you receive any kind of formal education on the subject?

I've been
addicted to movies since I can remember. When I was a kid, I used to
gather up my friends and shoot VHS movies. We did our own version of The
Untouchables and even adapted Stephen King's It into a fine
25-minute epic. I shot short video projects from our closed-circuit TV
station in High School. As college loomed I started to think making a
living making movies was an unrealistic goal, so actually wanted to major
in secondary education and be a history teacher. I couldn't afford my
first choice college, and was devastated. I ended up going to Towson State
University instead, saw that they had film courses, and thought "what
the hell?" I remember feeling defiant when I enrolled in Intro to
Film.

But
yeah, that became my major and quickly consumed my college experience.

What
can you tell us about Makebelieve, your debut feature as a
director?

Wow,
you really did your homework. Makebelieve was shot in 1999 while I
was still an undergrad. It was the first digital feature film made in
Maryland, I later found out. I'd written a script, just full of college
angst, and one of my film teachers, Steve Yeager, had just won an award at
Sundance for his documentary Divine Trash. He challenged our class
by having us explore indie film, and told that us that if Jarmusch, Smith
and Lee could just up and make a film, why couldn't we? He kind of dared
us to try, and I asked him to produce my film. He agreed.

I
think of that movie as the best education I ever received. It was trial by
fire, and it was an amazing learning experience; a much better learning
experience than a movie, ultimately.

But
what I remember the most is the cast. We shaped the whole experience
together over the course of a year and half. We lived and breathed it, and
it was the most collaborative, intense, and intimate experience I've ever
had making a film to this day. The experience of making that film, of
being so young and naive and invested ... it was very pure. I'll always
treasure that.

A few words about Still Life?

I
sure did make a movie called Still Life...

Seriously
though, I was still an undergrad and essentially didn't want the
experience of making Makebelieve to be over. It's very similar in a
lot of ways, but had more money behind it. It's kind of a warped mirror
image of Makebelieve. Where the first film is innocent and hopeful
and naive, Still Life is cynical and angry and really, really
trying to be an important movie. After MakebelieveI'd gone through
a really pivotal breakup and tried to work it all out onscreen in Still
Life. But I was 21 years old, how was I supposed to know I didn't
really have much to say about the world yet?

Another
fantastic learning experience, though, and was really my introduction to
the film festival world. Picked up a few awards and everything.

Ghosts
of Hamilton Street?

Ghosts
rounds out what I now call the "Towson Trilogy". I finished it
just as I graduated college, and looking back I can't believe that I
managed to make three feature films as an undergrad. It was filmed
entirely on weekends, brought back some of the Makebelieve and Still
Life casts and had a bit of a supernatural spin on it.

It's
still talky, and not perfect by any means, but I felt like I was getting
my footing on that one. I look back at the film and think that was when I
started to become really proficient as a director. The mechanics of making
a film were becoming clear to me, and there are moments of that movie I
really like, to this day.

It
also marks my first time working with Scott Graham, who would later go on
to star in Oculusand is one of my favorite actors to work with.
The film itself has some really interesting ideas and some sequences I'm
proud of, but is the last film I made before I really started to consider
the importance of commercial viability.

I
stepped away from the indie world at that point, you can only make so many
movies that don't ever sell before the business model falls out from under
you. I partnered up with a successful screenwriter named Jeff Howard, and
had a crash course in writing screenplays for sale for the next few years.
It was really exciting and fascinating to take a piece of material and do
it well, while still operating in the system and trying to make sure
everything was commercially viable. We wrote six scripts together and are
still writing together; Jeff is probably THE most important collaborator
of my career.

And then there's of course your
first horror film, Oculus: Chapter 3 - The Man with the Plan - a
few words about that one?

That
was the eye-opener for me. I wasn't trying to change the world, or
communicate my oh-so-deep thoughts on relationships or whatever, I was
just trying to scare people. I'd wanted to adapt a Stephen King story I
loved but couldn't get permission, and so decided to come up with
something original and just try to make a scary, scary movie.

I
had no money. None. The movie ended up being shot for a thousand dollars.
Scott Graham agreed to star, and the whole movie is him alone on screen in
a single room for a half hour. Talk about pressure. It seemed like it was
all stacked against us - we had no money, we had one location, and we
didn't have time or room to really light it so we just hung bright bulbs
and decided the movie would be fully, brightly lit the whole time. Making
something scary without darkness or shadow was a real challenge. It just
felt like we were rolling the dice, breaking a lot of rules and really
taking risks. If they worked out, though, we all knew it would be
something really interesting.

It
was a huge hit, critically and on the festival circuit. It was like the
lightbulb finally went off in my head. I remember feeling like I'd wasted
three opportunities to make great horror features, and wasn't sure if I'd
ever get the chance again. I really hoped I would and luckily Absentia
came along when the time was right.

Currently you are working on a
documentary called American Marriage together with Courtney Bell.
What can you tell us about that film?

Courtney
and I started dating in 2008, and one of the things that drew us together
was a fascination with marriage. I was going through a rough divorce and
had strong opinions about the expectations we have for marriage in our
society, which really don't make sense when weighed against the history of
the institution. Courtney is also very passionate about that topic and we
just started making the movie. We started flying across the country
conducting interviews, and soon it became a real project.

The
real challenge has been finishing it - the project keeps growing and
growing and there's so much to cover! We've got over 100 hours just of
interview footage so far and carving it down into a feature running time
is going to be the challenge. But it's a passion project and I expect to
be finished with by next year, and hope people will really enjoy it.

Obviously
we took a break to shoot Absentia, which Courtney also stars in,
and at the time we were shooting that she was six months pregnant with our
son Rigby, so we really haven't had the kind of available time we need to
get the doc finished quickly. But we're still chipping away at it, just
last week in fact ...

Any other films of
yours you'd like to talk about, any future projects?

I'm
slated to direct a feature version of Oculus in a few months, which
will hopefully be real game changer. It looks like we'll have a proper
budget and with Absentia finding global distribution, I have high
hopes for it. Beyond that, Jeff Howard and I have a handful of spec script
projects we're working on.

You
have also directed quite a bit of television and some commercials. How
does this differ from making actual films (if at all)?

A
lot of fun, but completely different. The TV and commercial work I've done
tends to be comedy oriented, which is weird for me to think about ... I
tend to think of myself as a really, really unfunny guy when it comes to
my work, but almost all of my stuff outside of the features is smart-ass
comedy.

Besides
being a director, you have also quite a resumé as an editor. A few words
about that aspect of your career?

Editing
is really my most valuable skill, I think. It makes a far better writer, a
really efficient director, and has also kept my bills paid for the last
decade. It might be what I do best. It's certainly the skill set I rely
upon the most, even when writing or in production I'm just trying to make
sure that I've got what I need as an editor. It's the aspect of filmmaking
I'd most recommend people put their energy into mastering.

Directors who inspire
you?

Frank
Darabont, certainly, and I love Brad Anderson. I have deep respect for Kiyoshi
Kurosawa and Jee-woon Kim; Chan-wook Park
is an absolute genius. Outside of the genre stuff, I'm a Terrence Malick
fanatic. I'm also really into Rian Johnson's work so far.

Anything else you are dying to
mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?

Thanks
so much for your interest ... I really hope people keep learning about our
little movie, and that they enjoy it. It was made for horror fans by
horror fans, and we're so thrilled for your interest and support.